At the Palaceside Building in Takebashi, Tokyo, the building's volunteer fire brigade New Year's ceremony—a regular New Year event—was held on the rooftop on the morning of the 8th, with training in initial firefighting and transporting the injured.
The fire brigade New Year's ceremony is said to have begun about 350 years ago in the Edo period, on January 4, Kanbun 2 (1659), when the newly organized shogunate fire brigades (jōbikeshi) led by senior councilor Inaba Iyo-no-kami Masanori raised morale before Ueno Tōshō-gū Shrine. Two years earlier, in Meireki 3 (1657), the Great Meireki Fire—said to be the largest in Japanese history—burned most of Edo, including Edo Castle's keep, and townspeople working to rebuild amid the scorched earth were exhausted. Inaba led four companies of jōbikeshi to boost spirits. This gave Edo townspeople great hope and trust, and from then on a New Year's ceremony was held every January 4 at Ueno Tōshō-gū—a tradition carried on to this day.
Town fire brigades (machi-bikeshi) organized in Kyōhō 3 (1718) also adopted the custom of imitating the jōbikeshi New Year's ceremony, singing work songs and performing ladder stunts in their neighborhoods on January 4 to raise morale.
At the Palaceside Building, the New Year's fire ceremony has been held every spring since the first on January 10, 1967 (Showa 42)—three months after completion.
On this day, twenty-four people including security staff from Aing and The Mainichi Newspapers Tokyo Center, Seibi cleaning, facility managers, and Mainichi Building Co. employees took part in training. About fifty building-related personnel watched as they demonstrated initial firefighting with training extinguishers, then—assuming "a major earthquake has caused a fire"—damage assessment, reporting to the disaster prevention center, notifying the fire department, and hose discharge from indoor hydrants; further training in rescuing the injured, CPR with AED, and transport on stretchers, renewing their pledge toward a safe and secure building.